So in my search for an ABM practitioner, I was lucky enough to find one 10 minutes from my house. His name is Brendan, and you can learn a little bit about him and the practice HERE.
My decision to start ABM sessions was not an easy one. The hard part was the fact that I was choosing to do what most in the medical community had considered "alternative therapy". NO ONE had heard of it, and every time I talked about it, I was usually meet with incredulous stares.
Since we had already been working with a Physical, Occupational and Early Intervention Therapist, most wondered if I wasn't happy with the results that I had seen upon working with them. While this wasn't entirely true, a part of it was. Colin was scheduled to see each person 2x a week. Since there were 3 therapists, this would equal 6 visits a week, with most overlapping each other on the same days.
Soon, our weeks were spent either preparing Colin for a therapy, or getting him rested before his next therapy. Physical therapy was definitely the hardest. While the therapist meant well, I could soon tell that Colin hated the stretching exercises and tummy time that she would do with him. It would almost seem as if a part of him would mentally "shut down" while she would start to work with him. The one therapist that I felt really connected with Colin was the Early Intervention therapist. Her work consisted of "play therapy". In essence, this required her to just play with Colin to engage his brain in learning about his environment.
However, in order to add ABM, the practitioner advised me of one slight, if not huge, detail. He himself was open to whatever I decided, but the founder, Anat Baniel, STRONGLY suggested that no other traditional therapies were done while receiving ABM lessons. The belief was that the ABM work would engage their brain to a whole new way of thinking, that engaging in traditional therapy would confuse the brain and not allow the new skills to be learned.
Stopping all other forms of therapy seemed liked my only option if I wanted to have the best possible outcome with this therapy. When I told Colin's pediatrician that I was considering pausing traditional therapies in lieu of this one, I could instantly tell that this decision was crazy in her eyes. Mainly, most just wanted to make sure that this was not some scam bent on getting as much money from a desperate parent (since it is not covered by insurance or Regional Center, we are paying out of pocket for each session.)
But after much prayer and discussion with Rich, we decided that giving Colin every opportunity out there would only help, not hurt him. And as a way to hedge my bet, I decided that I would give this therapy 1 month. If I didn't see any radical improvements after 1 month, then I would go back to our regular therapies.
We started our sessions with Brendan in early August. The sessions take place at his home, and for the first one, Rich decided to tag along. We had no idea what to expect, and I guess that was a good thing.
The first thing we noticed was how quickly Colin started to respond to the work. While it doesn't look like much, each gentle movement seemed to awaken something in Colin. Soon into the session, he was babbling up a storm like we had never seen! Below is a recent clip of him having ABM therapy in San Francisco (I'll talk about that in another post!).
One thing that was amazing was after the FIRST session, Colin responded by relaxing his legs!!!!!!!!!!
Why do I use the exclamation points with such excitement? Because this was something that Colin simply DID NOT DO before this session. Every time you would pick Colin up in the past, he would react by tightening his legs and back. This brain process was started early on in Colin's brain, and once we started Physical Therapy, it was something that we always tried to work on to stop Colin from doing it. But with the traditional therapies, nothing would work.
But with ABM, it was as if his brain opened up and suddenly realized what we were asking of him. At this point in time, scientific work about brain plasticity is in it's early stages, but as a parent to a child with brain damage, I feel that it is IMPERATIVE to educate myself about this field. On an intuitive level, I have determined that getting new connections established in his brain is going to be the ticket in getting Colin to overcome his current physical limitations. And with each subsequent session, I am seeing this develop in his brain, and I know in my heart that this is working.
I could go on and on, but here is a TED talks video by Anat Baniel where she explains about brain plasticity and how it shapes her work.
So please continue to pray for us as we go forth on this journey with an unknown destination. Prayers have gotten us so far, and I am excited to see how much farther we will go!
